Sat, Mar 17, 2007

KSM has claimed responsibility for masterminding the deaths of several thousand people and had tens of thousands of others marked for mayhem had not Bush and his boys busted the bastard.
But then again, this all could be a scam cooked up by the Bush administration.

If Americans want positive change, they should look to someone other than the political media darlings. They should look to Duncan Hunter. (Full disclosure: I’ve recently begun consulting with Hunter for his internet campaign.)

The wholesale migration of Democratic African-Americans voters towards Barack Obama and away from Hillary Clinton accelerated this week and began to reach epic proportions. Hillary has now gone from a 3:1 lead among blacks to an 11 point lead to a dead even 36-36 tie, all in the wake of her criticism of Obama.

It is important to remember, that the term Fetus does not describe some "thing" which is not human. It is a term, coined by medical science, which conveniently refers to a specific period during the growth of a human child. Keep that in mind as you read the story of Gianna Jessen.

Five years after its passage, the frustration with NCLB has grown and spans the ideological spectrum. In 2006, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget, state and local education bureaucrats spent 6.7 million hours and more than $140 million complying with NCLB paperwork.

The Associated Press reported this week that an Oakland, Calif., nonprofit called "Exhale" is offering "a series of electronic greeting cards that concerned friends and relatives can send to a woman after she chooses to have an abortion." For example, one card tells the woman she "did the right thing." Another "expresses sympathy, offering the gentle reminder that, 'As you grieve, remember you are loved.'"

Gen. Peter Pace was vehemently denounced and condemned earlier this week for expressing a personal moral judgment that homosexuality is immoral. The criticisms excoriated Pace for making a value judgment, while implying that the denunciations themselves were morally neutral. In reality, Pace’s critics expressed a moral judgment, too.

Without attracting much attention, representatives of the Belgian political party Vlaams Belang recently visited Washington, D.C. Frank Vanhecke and Filip Dewinter hoped to meet members of Congress; but Congress was in recess.

Late on the night of March 19, 2004, Earl Eckelberry was driving along Route 50-E near Parkersburg, W.Va. His car left the highway and crashed into an illegally parked tractor-trailer. He died in the wreckage.

"What do I need to do? What can we do to end this?” That was Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s plaint a couple of weeks ago as the controversy about the U.S. attorney scandal began to run out of control.

To read today’s papers, all the political controversies in our nation’s history combined don’t add up to the earthquake of a scandal that is rocking our world: the Bush Administration was involved in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Kent State University now has another problem on its hands. A member of the Ku Klux Klan who just recently was found operating a hate website (www.KillTheNegroes.com) has now been identified as a history professor at Kent
State.

"What is wrong with Dick Cheney?" asks Michelle Cottle in the inaugural issue of the newly relaunched New Republic. She then spends the next 2,000 words marshaling evidence suggesting that his cardiac disease has left him demented and mentally disordered.

We might as well change the Republican Party symbol from an elephant to a punching bag because the Republican wimps in DC just refuse to fight back. The base may have no qualms about going after liberals, but when we look for Republican pols on the Hill to show some leadership in this area, we're almost always sadly disappointed.

As one might expect in a communist country where they take red tape very seriously, my producers spent weeks before our trip filling out forms, questionnaires and documents required by numerous government bureaucracies.

Anticipation was high. The black-tie crowd had just finished a wonderful meal and enjoyed several moving presentations. The evening’s keynote speaker and top honoree was approaching the podium. But before he could utter a word, Sen. Ted Kennedy rose from a table in the front of the room and exited. His silent, rude snub was plainly intended to send the honoree a message: Your work and values are invalid.

Neal Boortz, the politically incorrect, truth-talking talk-show host out of Atlanta, is carried in nearly 200 radio markets from liberal coast to liberal coast. A libertarian who believes drugs and prostitution should be legal, he also says things like government schools are “the most rampant form of child abuse in this country” and “religion is all-too-often a refuge for scoundrels.”

Thu, Mar 15, 2007

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace defended the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy by explaining that he was brought up to believe that "homosexual acts between individuals are immoral" in an editorial board meeting with the Chicago Tribune.

The big problem in finding a conservative challenger to run for the GOP nomination is not the absence of a genuine constituency, nor is it even enthusiasm for ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Right-wingers who would pass the litmus test — guys like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, California Rep. Duncan Hunter, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, or even ex-Tennessee Sen. and famous actor Fred Thompson — face the need to climb over the political corpses of former Speaker New Gingrich (Ga.) and ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to make their case.

If you believe the media and the cry-baby left, the entire world hates the United States of America. I don’t believe that. The reality of it is they don't hate us; they just love our money and wish they could get their hands on more of it. That's all the rest of the world ever cared about.

After bringing in more than $70 million in its opening weekend, comic book adaptation 300 made history as the highest grossing film debut for the month of March and the third highest opening for an R-rated movie (after The Passion of the Christ and The Matrix Reloaded). Without a single recognizable star among its cast and a fraction of the production budget, it also far outperformed the opening tallies of predecessors like Troy and Gladiator.

As the Iraq war (and the debate surrounding it) has raged on in the years since, the Left has been trying harder and harder to claim the moral high ground with regard to the treatment and use of US troops, both by championing the few it can find who oppose the War on Terror, and by attempting to marginalize those who dare speak out against them.

It reminded the citizenry of the heavy-handed politics of Sen. Clinton's past. An undercurrent of unease seeped into press coverage of the controversy. Journalists and Democratic politicians seemed to sense that once again Clintonistas had gone too far.

While the over-staged drama of Congressional hearings will continue to dominate the Walter Reed story for weeks to come, there are some real cautions for our Congress and media before they jump in and help the military “solve” the problems at Walter Reed.

The uproar over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys may be a case where Gonzales actually had sound reasons, rather than unsavory political motives, for doing what he did. Someone who has consistently been a pliable administration functionary, though, can hardly expect the benefit of the doubt when scandal erupts.

Britain's Channel 4 has produced a devastating documentary titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle." It has apparently not been broadcast by any of the networks in the United States. But, fortunately, it is available on the Internet.

Policy-makers face immediate, predictable and foreseeable -- and especially in the case of Iran -- serious around-the-corner issues. Yet we divert time, money and energy fretting about hypothetical "calamities" of global warming rather than dealing with real world/real time threats.

Congress will soon decide whether to renew President Bush's signature
education program "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB), the goal of which is to
bring every public school student to grade level in reading and math by
2014.

Before an editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, not only endorsed presidential policy by which active homosexuals are discharged from the service, he declared that policy to be right morally.

William Shakespeare makes it to the attention of Washington's chattering class only a little more often than Harold Stassen. But tonight at the Kennedy Center, an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court will preside over the trial of Hamlet.

What's this - are the Americans still determined to win in Iraq? How
unsettling that possibility must be for Sunni insurgents, Shi'ite zealots,
al-Qaida killers and any armed Baathists still lurking about.

With scant thought given to the national interest, particular states pursuing what they fancy is in their interest are propelling the nation into a delegate-selection process so compressed that it will resemble a national primary. These states may exacerbate what they consider a problem -- the importance of early voting in small states.

Wed, Mar 14, 2007

I watch, read and listen to the pundits who have unofficially announced that the sub-prime mortgage market is dead or at least D.O.A. and I wonder if they have anything better to do during the day then make ridiculous statements.

The New York Times prides itself on ethical journalism. The company boasts a 57-page "handbook of values and practices" for its newsroom. "Our greatest strength," the paper intones, "is the authority and reputation of the Times."

The exact amount unfortunately will never be known, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) dished out anywhere from $600 million to $1.4 billion in "improper and potentially fraudulent payments" to applicants who used false information when applying for expedited cash assistance after Hurricane Katrina.

It has become a central ritual of our times for Beltway priests like the
Washington Post's David Broder to lament the coarseness, acidity and
all-around ickiness of our polarized political culture. They're not
absolutely wrong. All I need to do to appreciate the toxicity of the
political culture is check my e-mail each morning.

Sharpton told CBS News that he is withholding his endorsement until after his National Action Network summit next month. Meanwhile, he's playing hard to get between the Obama and Hillary Clinton camps, even declining to return calls from Obama's campaign.

When all participants,
including non-paying students, reporters, speakers and merchants were
clocked in, the ACU says some 6,500 folks graced their doors. That is
extraordinary. It shows that conservatives were looking for direction. I'm not sure that they received it.

The enthusiastic reception given to a speech by Newt Gingrich at a recent meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee has revived speculation that he may enter the presidential nomination race, after all.

Last week, when a federal appeals court ruled that the District of Columbia's gun ban violates the right to "keep and bear arms," The New York Times reported that the judges were "interpreting the Second Amendment broadly."

Thanks to the 2003 gubernatorial recall and the 2005 special election, there has been at least one statewide election in California every year since 2002. Before the special election, wags were agog about "voter fatigue."

Rudy Giuliani has made a strategic choice in the Republican primary contest. He will stay pro-choice on the issue of abortion, and thus avoid the flip-flopper label that has so harmed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

The jarring spectacle of jurors expressing support for, or at least indifference toward, an executive act to wipe away the conviction that they just handed down is a damning statement about Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

While conservatives still believe that the major media are biased against them, one hears more and more criticism coming from the left. Indeed, judging by what one reads on the left-wing blogs, there are many liberals out there who truly believe that the major media now have a conservative bias.

Parading casualties is called "honoring our troops." But what does it mean to honor someone? When we gather at a memorial service to honor someone in death or at a ceremony to award prizes to them while they are alive, what do we do?

That substantial numbers of conservative evangelical voters are even
considering these candidates as presidential prospects is a sign of their
political maturation and of their more pragmatic view of what can be
expected from politics and politicians.

The chattering class nostrum that Free Iraq and its coalition allies have "lost the Iraq war" is so blatantly wrong it would be a source of laughter were human life and hope-inspiring liberty not at such terrible risk.

Just as I was appraising the possibility of curtailing my 30-year devotion to the daily, and increasingly expensive, The New York Times, a noted research outfit limned the perplexity of all of us who consume or produce journalism.

The battle for the Republican presidential nomination underwent a major transformation last weekend when Fred Thompson told Chris Wallace of the Fox News Channel that he is considering entering the race.

As a student and strong supporter of the Truman model for war-ravaged Western Europe and Japan, post World War II, as encompassed in the Marshall Plan, I believe it could be a powerful tool of soft diplomacy in this messy insurgency.

Mon, Mar 12, 2007

While it was flattering to be informed that I was on your list of "our
nation's key opinion leaders at this critical juncture of world affairs," it
would be difficult for me to answer your questions, i.e., spout off, without
feeling that I was doing so under false pretenses.

In particular, taxing capital less has unlocked new investment and unleashed record liquidity to fund business and the stock market, even in the face of money-tightening actions by the Federal Reserve.

When discussing the concept of school choice, we often refer to the “lucky lottery of life.” A child doesn’t control which family he or she is born into, what economic situations that family must deal with, or what school he or she is likely to attend.

Anyone who does much driving on our highways in ordinary sedans knows how crowded with big trucks the highways already are. President George W. Bush's latest concession to Mexico is to allow Mexican trucks for the first time to have open access to all our highways, roads and bridges.

Ouch. Feb. 27 was one of those days when a pinched nerve would have felt like a relief compared with the pain felt by millions of investors. In just a few hours of trading, hundreds of billions of dollars vanished.

Ryan has tried to live a good life, and he hopes he has. At least in the captain’s eyes, he hopes he’s “earned it,” that his life has been worthy of the sacrifice Captain Miller and the other men made of
giving their lives for his.

The Popular Press was tripping all over itself this past weekend with the news that Newt Gingrich had come clean on an affair he was having while he was still Speaker; that Fred Thompson said he might consider running for President; and Chuck Hagel will be making an announcement today about his Presidential intentions.

"History will be kind to me," Winston Churchill once said, "for I intend to write it." Indeed, he did. His multiple-volume histories of the two world wars are still widely read, though discounted by professional historians as incomplete and in some ways misleading.

So here you have state lawmakers working on a bill to encourage Californians to save more money -- by proposing a bill expected to cost the state $270 million a year, even though the state doesn't have the money to pay for it.

While Hillary Rodham Clinton came out second best to Barack Obama in their long-range oratorical duel at Selma, Ala., the real problem with her visit there a week ago concerned her March 4 speech's claim of her attachment to Martin Luther King Jr. as a high school student in 1963. How, then, could she be a "Goldwater girl" in the next year's presidential election?

If you want to know how the Iraq debate got so acrimonious, the tipping point was when mainstream Democrats went from accusing Bush of bungling the Iraq war to accusing him of lying to get America into that war.

I’m beginning to feel sorry for Julio Pino. After his department chair “outed” him as the man behind the pro-Jihadist website “Global War” he’s apparently been getting some threatening messages from people not tolerant of the religion that likes to kill innocent Christians and Jews.

Sun, Mar 11, 2007

The flock has been demoralized both by the weasels (called humanities professors) nipping at them when they were young and vulnerable, and by the leaders of churches who have either sacrificed some lambs (hoping to appease these atheist hyenas) or have simply retreated from the world.

If this week had a theme, it was certainly 'Ann Coulter'. Ann suffered a week of attacks but survived. Are you really suprised? Townhall.com readers didn't abandon Ann and she found herself at #3 this week. See what else Townhall.com readers were talking about during the week that was -- March 4th-10th, 2007

Back in November, I wrote an article recalling the first time I met Santorum. I intended the piece to be a personal recollection, with some analysis of polling data, and concluding with the point that Santorum—despite the crushing margin—should never be underestimated. This is a man capable of surprising victories. The article was carried by several local and national sources, including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I didn’t expect much feedback, figuring I hadn’t said anything notably controversial. Boy, was I wrong.

In the 13 largest cities, drivers are stuck in traffic the equivalent of nearly eight work days. Congestion's immediate and indirect economic costs -- not including lost serenity, family time and civic engagement -- just begin with fuel and wear and tear on vehicles.

Since the issuance of indictments last April, the prosecution of three former Duke University lacrosse players (all young white males) for the alleged rape of a black female "dancer" has continued, despite continuously mounting evidence against their assumed guilt.